Setup Upgrade

The purpose of this page is to walk you through the setup process of upgrading an existing instance of Kinetic Request and/or Survey. This would apply to existing customers who have previously installed either Kinetic Request or Kinetic Survey.
This document will not discuss installing multiple web servers and load balanced environments, it is intended to illustrate how to setup a simple web server and install the Remedy components necessary for Kinetic Request and Survey.

Process Overview

The process of upgrading Kinetic Request and Survey is fairly straightforward, and only consists of a few steps. Some additional minor steps may be required for customers who are using bundles, have custom login pages, or are upgrading from a version prior to v5.1.1.

The customer will first need to setup a web server environment. See the requirements before beginning this process. The server will need to have Java installed, along with a Java web servlet container (such as Apache Tomcat), or a Java web application server (such as Oracle WebLogic). Kinetic Data recommends using Apache Tomcat.

Once that is installed, the Kinetic Request and Survey web archive file can be deployed to the web server. The first time a user loads any page from the web application, they will be redirected to the setup wizard. The setup wizard will walk the user through the setup process to collect the necessary information, and upgrade the components to the Remedy server.

Process Details

We will assume you already have a server with Java, and a servlet container installed. If you do not already have that, take a look at the Apache Tomcat documentation and install Tomcat 7 on your web server.

Deploy the Kinetic Request and Survey web application to the servlet container. The method to do this will depend on the servlet container you are using. For Apache Tomcat, simply copy the war file into the <tomcat_home>/webapps directory.

Navigate your web browser to the deployed web application at http://webserver:port/kinetic/. Once you have authenticated as the local administrator user, the setup will be begin with the welcome page.

Continuing along, the setup program will ask you to change the local administrator credentials if they are still set as the default values. It is not required to change these values, but it is recommended since these values are published on the Kinetic Data community site. Not that these credentials do NOT represent a Remedy user account. This is a local user account specific to this instance of the web application, and is typically only used to setup the web application. NOTE: Any changes made these credentials will be applied immediately upon continuing to the next page.

If you did not make any changes to the default credentials, you will be warned about continuing with the default values, but you will be allowed to continue. The Previous button will be highlighted as an indication that we recommend you go back and change the values.

If you did change the default credentials, that will be indicated so that you know the changes were applied.

The next step is to point the web application at the Remedy server where the Kinetic Request and Survey applications reside and should be updated.

Nothing will be written or changed on the Remedy server at this time, the application will simply try to connect to the Remedy server using the information provided, and it will attempt a few validations and checks:

Validates the application can connect to the Remedy server or IP address on the provided port.

Validates the user credentials are for a valid Remedy user account.

Validates the Remedy user account is a member of the Administrators group.

Validates the Remedy server allows admin operations.

Checks if Kinetic Request and Survey are already installed. If so, whether the installed version is older, newer, or the same version as the web application.

If Kinetic Request and Survey are already installed and the existing version is older than the version being installed, the process can continue with the upgrade.

If Kinetic Request and Survey are already installed and the existing version is newer than the version being installed, the process cannot continue. You must get the appropriate version of Kinetic Request and Survey before continuing.

If Kinetic Request and Survey are already installed and the existing version is the same as the version being installed, the process can continue, but nothing will be changed on the Remedy server.

Descriptions of the property fields required to connect to the Remedy server:

Server Name - Either the name or the IP address of the Remedy server. If the server name is used, the web application must be able to resolve the name and be able to reach this server.

TCP Port - The TCP port the Remedy server is running on. If the Remedy server is not running on a specific prot, but instead using Portmapper, enter 0.

Web User ID - The login ID of a Remedy User account that is a member of the Administrator group. This account will be used by the web application as a proxy account for communicating with the Remedy server through the Remedy Java API.

Web User Password - The password associated to this Remedy user account. If the account does not use a password - which is highly unlikely for an Administrator user - leave this value blank.

If any of the validations fail, the reason will be displayed to the user and the the Remedy Server Information page will be redisplayed, allowing you to correct your information or change to a different Remedy server. Two examples:

Connection Error

Authentication Error:

If the Remedy server cache mode is set to production you will receive a warning. The reason for this warning is that the installer needs to import Remedy workflow, and it checks the server to make sure the workflow objects were imported correctly. When the cache mode is set to production mode, the objects do not get registered immediately, and the installer may time out waiting for the objects to become registered. If this happens the upgrade will be left in an incomplete state, and will need to be run again. It is highly recommended to change this setting to development cache mode before continuing with the upgrade.

If the Remedy server information passes all the validations, the results page will be displayed indicating the existing version and release date if it could be determined. This is the last page that will be displayed for an upgrade before the Remedy server is upgraded.

Clicking the Continue button will start the upgrade process show a table of steps that are being performed so you have some idea of the progress. The process will install any missing Remedy groups, and upgrade all forms, workflow, data records, and Kinetic Request and Survey templates.

Once the upgrade has finished, simply click the Continue button to be logged out of the setup wizard, and redirected to the Administration Console. Here you can login with a Remedy user account that has been added to one of the allowed Kinetic Data application groups, or the Administrators group.

Since Remedy forms and workflow were upgraded, it will be necessary to flush the Mid-Tier cache if your organization is using the Remedy Mid-Tier application.